


Strange Attractors

by Rrismo



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Ableist Language, Bad Choice Road - Groundhog Day edition, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Sex, Dark Comedy, Enemies to Lovers, Lalo's just here to have a blast, M/M, Slow Burn, Substance Abuse, Whump, the only fic in which your OTP gets to kill each other BEFORE their first kiss!!!, torturing Nacho is too much fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25307062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rrismo/pseuds/Rrismo
Summary: "I know your weakness.”Lalo tilts his head as his gaze wanders up Nacho’s body. There’s the hint of a smile right where his mustache disguises the corners of his mouth. “And what would that be, eh? Pretty boys with murder in their eyes?”Nacho scoffs. “I was thinking more along the lines of a bullet to the head”,  he answers, and shoots.There's a certain moment in time that Nacho can't seem to escape.
Relationships: Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina/Ignacio "Nacho" Varga, Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca/Ignacio "Nacho" Varga
Comments: 51
Kudos: 78
Collections: Lacho Week 2020





	1. Déjà Vu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Lacho Week, going with the extra prompt "Choices".
> 
> I wasn't planning on writing anything, but everybody's creative energy is just so contagious that I couldn't help it! This is gonna get more raunchy (and dark) as time goes on, tags will be added with each new chapter.

When Nacho thinks back to this morning, he recalls everything feeling distinctly normal. He wakes up next to Jo, just like the day before. She’s sleeping in her favorite position, curled up on her right side, facing away from Nacho, head resting on her arm, just like the morning before. His watch is ticking on his nightstand. He ignores it and gets up.

Nacho has breakfast (a bowl of mac and cheese one of the girls left in the fridge) and prepares his shake, still half asleep, his body functioning like a machine on autopilot. When he arrives at the gym parking lot, some gringo cuts in in front of him, and misses Nacho’s hood by only a hand’s width. The same shit almost happened to him yesterday. Nacho honks at the man and gestures for him to get out of the way. He can make out the other guy’s gaunt face through the windshield, and Nacho’s sure he’s seen him before. Isn’t that the same man who almost bumped into him yesterday? He is driving the same embarrassing Audi convertible. _Dicks around here should learn how to drive before getting ugly show off cars_ , Nacho thinks. 

Once the flaquito finally stepped on the gas and moved his phony ass out of the way, Nacho can find a parking spot and make his way to the gym.

It’s when Nacho walks up to El Michoacáno that he starts noticing it first. Something strange, like a déjà vu mirroring what he’s seeing back to him in his memory. Isn’t that the same insufferably cheerful song blaring through the speakers as last time? “Paca paca paca en mi caballo”, drones the radio, and again, “paca paca paca en mi caballo!”

A deep sigh escapes Nacho. He had successfully pushed the new Salamanca nuisance from his mind after he’s met him yesterday. Lalo and his incessant babbling, that overly chummy attitude and his food that probably would have smelled delicious if Nacho’s stomach hadn’t turned at the sight of Lalo’s toothy grin.

Nacho looks around and sees Domingo sitting in his place, the owner of the restaurant at the table next to him, both staring up at him fearfully, just like they did yesterday. _What is it this time_ , Nacho thinks and keeps himself from rolling his eyes. He shoots Domingo a short questioning glance, but the other man just helplessly lifts his shoulders and nods to the back of the shop where Lalo’s having a party all by himself.

It’s no surprise to Nacho that Domingo freezes up quickly, but this is too much. Nacho gives him a disapproving click of his tongue, and the message gets through. Domingo shrinks in his chair and casts his eyes down to the tabletop in front of him.

Not even bothering with the same caution as the day before, Nacho waltzes up to the kitchen and lays eyes on the tall, wiry frame of Lalo Salamanca, working the sizzling stovetop and singing along to the music. It still makes Nacho’s blood boil to see this man act as if the entire place belongs to him, but being a Salamanca does grant certain privileges, like the ability to ignore when you are encroaching on another man’s turf.

Lalo turns, and notices him. “Oh, hey!”, he exclaims, a beam spreading over his face. “You’re here, right on time! Hold on one second, wait.” He puts the finishing touches on the taco he’s preparing.

Nacho stifles a sigh. Not this again.

“You are going to love this!”, Lalo says. “I made this just for you! Never in your life have you tasted something so delicious, it’s true! Wait…” He holds out the platter with the finished taco, his eyes gleaming and his face practically cut in two by a familiar self-satisfied grin. “You’re going to die”, Lalo says.

Giving the plate in front of him a short disbelieving glance, Nacho huffs. Does Lalo think if he pulls the same act often enough, Nacho will have to give in eventually? He looks up at Lalo and withstands his piercing gaze. “Thanks, I already ate.”

Instead of backing away, Lalo gets closer to him, just like he did yesterday. In the hot, humid kitchen air, the smell of roasted meat mingles with the scent of his cologne. He really is tall, but Nacho refuses to tilt his head back to look up at him.

Lalo gives the plate a long and relishing sniff. “Smell it”, he says. “You can’t say no, are you crazy?” His huge, ink black eyes are full of childish excitement. It’s almost enough to cover up the lurking gaze. Yesterday, it was enough to rattle Nacho. Today, he’s almost disappointed that Lalo thinks he can pull the same old trick on him and get the same reaction. Maybe he is more like a child than Nacho thought. 

“I used epazote man, come on”, Lalo says, leaning forward into Nacho’s personal space way too far, his voice dropping to an almost whisper, as if he’s letting Nacho in on a well kept secret. There’s just one problem - he already told Nacho yesterday.

Nacho furrows his brows in confusion and returns Lalo’s gaze, trying to figure out whether he’s joking, trying to come on to him, or whether it’s just slipped his mind. But there’s nothing to read in that mirthful face, and when Lalo turns away and says “Very well, you’re not hungry. That’s your problem”, Nacho is getting whiplash from the déjà vu. “This is a special recipe, a family secret”, Lalo says between bites of the taco.

“Yeah, the Salamanca family”, Nacho answers, trying his hardest to keep the confusion out of his voice.

“Them!”, Lalo shouts and points at Nacho, then at himself. “I’m Eduardo. But you can call me Lalo!”

Hot anger bubbles up inside Nacho’s stomach, races into his throat and lungs. “I know”, he says, and then, with all the emphasis he can muster without sounding abrasive, he adds: “We met.”

Lalo, who was about to go back to working the stove, halts in his movement and turns to face Nacho again, his expression blank for the first time. No trace of his fake, pally facade when he raises his brows and stares at Nacho. “Really.” 

This actual bastard, Nacho thinks. He can’t be serious. Either Lalo is honestly trying to fuck with him with a provocation this immature, or he really has forgotten Nacho. So either this man is even more of a bona fide piece of shit than Nacho thought, or completely bonkers. Nacho’s not sure which he would hate more. Maybe Lalo’s more like Tuco than Hector. But Nacho’s dealt with a lot of crackheads, and Lalo’s not one of them.

“Yesterday”, Nacho says, his voice even and cold.

Lalo tilts his head at that. He furrows his brows, looks back at the entrance door and makes a vague gesture with the spatula in the same direction. “That can’t be right. I just arrived today!”

The day before, Nacho thought Lalo was strange. Today, he’s convinced Lalo’s an absolute nutcase. Nacho folds his arms in front of him and leans against the wooden beam by the entrance to the kitchen. There’s no point in fighting over this with Lalo. Salamancas have always been living in their own reality, just that this one is taking it more literal than the others. 

When Nacho doesn’t answer, Lalo turns back to the stove, the frown vanishing from his face. “Believe me, I’d know if I had seen you before”, Lalo says with a wink over his shoulder. “Maybe you’ve seen me in your dreams?”

He’s definitely coming on to him.

“You are Varga, right?”

“Yeah”, Nacho says, eyes fixed to the ground so he won’t shoot daggers at Lalo with them.

“They told me you were smart, but…”, Lalo chuckles to himself. “They didn’t tell me you had such a vivid imagination.” He continues to walk Nacho through the reason for his arrival again, even using the same gestures as yesterday, and has the audacity to ensure Nacho that it’s going to be like he’s not even here, _again_.

This is beyond ludicrous, even for a Salamanca.

And for the first time, there’s a tug in Nacho’s stomach, a short feeling like he’s dreaming of falling and jolting from his sleep.

What if Lalo is not fucking with him. What if this is just an honest to god trick of his mind, and he’s making a fool out of himself, or even worse, messes up his relationship with his new boss for no good reason?

Lalo saunters over to the dining area and sits down next to Domingo, and one of their dealers walks in.

That means it’s Tuesday.

How is it Tuesday?

Nacho wants to look at his watch, but he hasn’t put it back on after workout this morning. He curses under his breath. Maybe he’s the one going insane.

He spends the entire rest of the day standing just two feet beside himself. Sitting on the table behind Lalo and Domingo, he listens to Lalo babble about business, about how they’re going to get everything in tip top shape around here, and tries his darndest not to let it show that he’s heard all of this before.

Domingo sits in the exact same hunched position as yesterday, shooting wary glances at Lalo, only daring to look at Nacho over his shoulder once. Nacho returns the glance and scans Domingo’s eyes for any trace of the same confusion he feels. He’s known Domingo almost his entire life, knows the way his features soften when he’s content, knows the light creases that form around his mouth when he’s upset, the blush that creeps up his neck and cheeks when he’s embarrassed. But there is nothing in Domingo’s face except uncertainty. The only source of discomfort for him is the vicinity of Lalo.

After a second, Domingo breaks the eye contact.

The hours pass by as Nacho watches all the same conversations from the day before play out in front of him, his expression stony-faced, determined not to let anyone know about this moment he’s having. Wouldn’t be the first time that his head is doing weird shit, what with all the spacing out he’s been doing lately. When the last dealer has come and gone and Lalo is done detailing his plans for the business, Nacho dismisses Domingo with a curt nod, lets Lalo pat his shoulder as they close up the shop for the day, gets in his car and drives home, all while hoping that his mind is playing a strange trick on him.

Amber greets him the exact same way she did yesterday night, with Jo asleep next to her. Nacho takes Amber’s thin hand and pulls her up from the leather couch in front of the TV, takes her with him to the bedroom and sits her down on the bed. She watches him undress, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Bad day, babe?”

Nacho shakes his head, hangs up his shirt, switches off the light and crawls into bed next to Amber once he’s naked. She cuddles up to him, lets her head rest on his chest, curls of her hair tickling his neck.

“You notice anything… weird?”, Nacho finally asks, and immediately regrets the question. 

“Like what?”

“About today.”

Amber lies quiet for a moment, then she says: “Yeah.”

Nacho lifts his head the slightest bit, eyes fixed on the warm shape of Amber next to him.

”The mac and cheese in the fridge was gone this morning, but Jo says she didn’t eat it”, she says. “That was weird.”

Nacho sighs and lets his head plop back into the pillow. Serves him right. What kind of answer was he hoping to get from Amber.

Sleep, that's probably all he needs, he thinks to himself, as the fatigue from spending the entire day on high alert creeps into his bones and pulls him under. High time for this crappy day to be over.

In his dreams, huge shadows move on the horizon of his consciousness, form shapes and melt away again, too blurry to make out. The distorted sounds of a radio echo over the empty plains of the dream, coming and going like the ebb and flow of the sea, and it sounds suspiciously like “paca paca paca en mi caballo!” Through the noise, there’s a familiar voice crying out, but it’s too far away, too muffled, the radio too loud. Nacho tries to run, but he’s slow, and he’s struggling to even give his surroundings enough shape for the ground to be solid enough to step on. He sinks into the blackness of his mind, and wakes up.

Next to him lies Jo, back turned towards him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how long this is going to get, but I'll try finishing it within about four chapters. This is a way more... ''me'' fic than the ones before, which means it's taking a bit to get to the good stuff. But to the good stuff it's gonna get!!!
> 
> Hope you like it, love you all!


	2. Roadkill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I know your weakness.”_
> 
> _Lalo tilts his head, and his hips too, as his gaze wanders up Nacho’s body. There’s the hint of a smile right where his mustache disguises the corners of his mouth. “And what would that be, eh? Pretty boys with murder in their eyes?”_
> 
> _Nacho scoffs. “I was thinking more along the lines of a bullet to the head”, he answers, and shoots._

“Oh hey!”, Lalo yells, and the smile on his face turns into a wide grin, stretching his mustache and deepening the creases around the corners of his mouth.

“You’re here, right on time”, Nacho murmurs, his eyes fixed to Lalo’s mouth saying the same exact words at the same exact time.

Lalo chuckles at that. “And here I thought _I_ was expecting _you_!” He holds out one hand in Nacho’s direction and sprinkles the taco he’s working on with a last pinch of spices. “Hold on one second, wait. You are going to love this!” He doesn’t look at Nacho, so he doesn’t notice the other man mouthing along the words as he says “I made this just for you! Never in your life have you tasted something so delicious, it’s true! Wait…” He crosses the gap between them and holds out the plate. “You’re going to die.”

Nacho stares up at him, and he must look terrified, because Lalo pulls back his chin a little and smirks. “Can’t take a joke, eh?”

Nacho doesn’t know how many times they’ve been standing across each other in this kitchen, and he doesn’t know why he keeps coming here. For the first couple of Tuesdays, he was wearing his watch, just because he needed something, anything, to remind him that even after waking up for the fifth or sixth time, it’s still Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004.

Every single word Lalo says in this conversation is already deeply ingrained into Nacho’s memory, he can speak them along as Lalo says them, even knows Lalo’s reactions when he notices and can mouth them along too. Lalo just laughs at him every time and starts ignoring Nacho’s probably slightly creepy stare after a couple of minutes.

“No, thank you”, Nacho says before Lalo has even started offering him food.

Lalo only raises his eyebrows and lifts his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Suit yourself”, he says, but it doesn’t keep him from repeating his introduction the same way he always does.

If this is a bad trip, then it has to wear off. Nacho spends a day waiting for it, then another one, and another one. Sometimes he follows through with his usual routine, sometimes he just sits at home, between the girls on the couch, with Amber happily munching the cold mac and cheese he didn’t eat this morning. Those days, he ignores the buzzing of his phone on the dirty couch table and watches infomercials until midnight. He can’t remember staying awake after this point. It seems like every day, at precisely midnight, his consciousness gives out, regardless of how hard he tries to stay awake. Not even jumping jacks at 11:59 PM will keep his body from falling unconscious at exactly 12 AM.

So maybe it just seems to him like time is passing. Maybe he’s dreaming. And if this is a dream, then there has to be a way to wake up. But Nacho doesn’t wake up, no matter what he does. He throws cold water in his face, pinches himself, even tips the chair he’s sitting on backwards, but all he gets from that is a light concussion as his head hits the tiled floor of the Michoacáno and a very confused look from Lalo and Domingo.

“Your friend is a bit crazy, eh?”, Lalo says to Domingo with an amused undertone as they watch Nacho get up from the floor and slap himself in the face as he makes his way to the front door. “Ey, where’re you going?” 

Lalo’s voice barely registers with Nacho as he leaves the restaurant, walks up to the street, and watches the people and cars pass by. Are they here? Is he truly here? Is any of this real? He feels like he’s watching a gigantic movie screen, and the world around him is passing him by while he remains in place, his ass in the theater chair. He wants to reach out and touch the screen, but there’s nothing there, just thin air. Cars speed past him, and the closer he gets, the clearer he can feel the draft they produce, the louder the squealing of their tires get as their owners frantically crank the steering wheels to avoid hitting him.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on Nacho’s shoulder and he’s being yanked back.

“Pero qué chingados…!”, Lalo’s voice yells over the scream of the horn of a truck that’s suddenly right in front of Nacho, barrelling past him only two feet from his face. Through the haze of Nacho’s consciousness, he notices not without a trace of satisfaction that there’s no grin on Lalo’s face anymore. “¿Estas loco, cabrón?”

Nacho grabs Lalo’s wrist and wants to tear his hand off his shoulder, but Lalo is a lot stronger than he looks. A short tussle ensues, “¿Qué mierda te pasa?”, Lalo shouts. Nacho breaks free from his grip. He stumbles backwards, right into an incoming car. Nacho feels his bones being yanked apart by the sudden impact, feels his body being pulled under the wheels.

He wakes up in bed next to Jo, his scream making her jolt upright.

This is where it really hits him for the first time. It feels worse than being run over by a car, and Nacho can’t believe that’s a point of reference he has now.

There is no escaping this.

Not even death will put an end to this.

He is trapped.

It doesn’t matter where he spends this day, whether he apathetically watches Lalo’s sing and dance, whether he stays at home with the girls and makes them giggle at his uncanny clairvoyance of the news or his ability to speak along to every single infomercial, whether he drives out of town and screams into the vast emptiness of the desert until his voice cracks - he always wakes up in bed next to Jo, and it’s Tuesday, his watch ticks on the nightstand, he walks into the shop, and again and again, the radio goes “Paca paca paca en mi caballo!”

Sometimes Nacho plays along with Lalo, prompts him to say his lines. Sometimes he tries to veer him off the track, but Lalo seems very set on bringing his little routine across. He’s not deterred by Nacho’s exasperation, just like he wasn’t deterred by his ire before. This man is like the ultimate affliction of this warped reality Nacho finds himself in, the one big constant that everything else seems to revolve around. Nacho is doomed to meet him again and again, for the first time, for the rest of his life, while the tinny sound of “paca paca paca” reverberates off the yellow kitchen walls.

“Oh, hey!”, Lalo greets him, but Nacho does not dignify him with an answer or even an acknowledging glance. Instead, he just walks right past Lalo, grabs the radio on the shelf and tosses it out the window high up on the back wall. The window shatters, shards rain down onto the floor and the radio lands on the ground outside with a smash. 

The kitchen is blissfully quiet for a couple of breaths.

“Ay”, Lalo sighs. He stares up at the window, more baffled than shocked. “¡Qué grosero!”, is all he has to say as his gaze turns back to Nacho, and he looks different. Not surprised in his usual, smug and unaffected way. Really, he just seems honestly unhappy. It strikes a chord inside Nacho, and his heart clenches together in an exciting, way too heavy beat.

This is not just a film that Nacho has to sit back and watch over and over again. There are more things he can do to interact with his surroundings than just learn the lines and repeat them back at their originators until his opponent thinks he’s going insane. He is not just an audience. He might feel completely disconnected from everyone around him, but he is in the same room as these people.

He can change things.

Lalo always had him fooled into thinking differently, with the way he just does not seem to care what Nacho says or does. Even now, Lalo only shrugs his shoulders. “Alright, I get it, you’re the big guns around here”, he says while continuing to turn the meat for the tacos on the stove. “I appreciate that, honestly! You did a good job with my tío Hector gone. That’s why I wanted to go about doing this the nice way. But, hermano…” With a smooth motion, Lalo steps right in front of Nacho, and he smiles down on him so sweetly, with his eyes narrowed in such an intense, cold fondness that it makes the hairs on the back of Nacho’s neck stand on end. “El amo de la plaza está de vuelta, and it’s time to hand over the reigns again, understand?”

Nacho swallows and his heart jumps into his throat. It’s the first time that Lalo’s ever directly threatened him. The taller man remains like this for a moment, looming over him, inky eyes boring deep into Nacho’s, until he’s sure he brought his point across. Then the corners of Lalo’s mouth twitch just the slightest bit. “I better get back to work, can’t let the good meat go to waste. And you try not to break anything else around here, alright?” And from then on out, it’s the same old spiel as always. “You are Varga, right? They told me you were smart. They didn’t tell me you have such a fiery temper!” Lalo chuckles, but Nacho catches it again, right there in the way Lalo presses his lips into a displeased line as he looks to the empty place on the shelf where the radio used to be.

Something’s different.

Nacho’s changed the course of the day, if even just a little bit. 

Not taking his eyes off Lalo, Nacho inhales and calms his heartbeat. There’s no need to be nervous, he realizes. He will wake up, and it will be Tuesday morning again. If he can’t escape this hell, he can at least test out its limitations. 

“Did they also tell you it was your uncle’s own idiocy that made him end up in that wheelchair?”, Nacho says and folds his arms in front of his chest. 

Lalo only pauses for a short second, then he continues to busy himself with the stove, seemingly unaffected by Nacho’s words.

Does he just not care? No, Nacho thinks. If he’s learned one thing from all these years working for the Salamancas, it’s that they would never stand for insults against one of their own.

Nacho pulls himself together. Even if Lalo should kill him, he will just wake up again and the day will begin anew. When Nacho opens his mouth, his jaw is hurting from how tightly he’s been gritting his teeth. “That old cripple couldn’t run a business if his life depended on it. Which it does, unfortunately.”

Finally, Lalo reacts. He nods and makes a thoughtful noise. “Seems to me his biggest shortcoming was not teaching you guys a lot of respect.” He breathes air out through his nose in what could be a laugh. “Never took him for the lenient kind.” Lalo finishes his plate of tacos, cleans up the stove and saunters over to the dining area, like he always does after he’s done cooking. He sets down the plate next to Domingo, but doesn’t sit down. Instead, he turns to face Nacho with a cheerful smile. “But hey!” He grabs Domingo’s chair by the backrest and yanks it around with surprising force, along with the man sitting on it.

Suddenly, there is a gun in his hand, and he’s pointing it at Domingo.

“Better late than never”, Lalo finishes his sentence and looks at Nacho, the way his head swings slightly in place gives him a striking resemblance to a bobblehead figure.

Domingo’s holding on to the sides of his chair, knuckles turning white, dark eyes staring at Nacho, widened by fear, and it’s like a gaping hole opens up right where the ground under Nacho’s feet used to be. His breath hitches in his throat. How could he be so blind and stupid to think that he can do whatever he wants in this world. There is no reality where it doesn’t matter to him whether Domingo lives or dies. 

“Nacho”, Domingo whispers and slowly lifts his hands, while his eyes dart up to Lalo, and it’s not clear whether it’s a question, or a plea for help. The nuzzle of the gun nudges the side of his head, and Domingo flinches hard. Lalo misinterprets the gesture, and his trigger finger twitches, maybe just to threaten Nacho, maybe to actually shoot Domingo.

Either way, Nacho’s body reacts before his mind has time to process what’s happening. He whips out his own gun from the back of his waistband and shoots. The gunshot cracks through the room like a whip. Lalo is hit in the chest. He stumbles backwards in surprise. Another shot, it hits him right in the face, and he falls to the ground, pulling one of the empty chairs with him. He’s dead before he hits the ground.

With a yelp, Domingo jumps out of his seat like a scalded dog. The shop owner presses himself back against the wall. They’re both standing there, staring down at Lalo’s lifeless body. The quiet in the room is like a thick, suffocating liquid between them.

“What the hell, man…! You-… you just shot a Salamanca!”, Domingo stammers without looking up, his voice about an octave higher than usual. Then he backs away, slowly, like he’s trying not to turn his back on a vicious animal. “I’m getting out of here!”

Nacho can hear the shop owner’s hurried steps as he makes a run for the back door in the storage room, and Domingo’s still hesitant shuffling, but it doesn’t register with him, not really. All he can feel is his grip around the warm SIG-Sauer in his hand, holding onto it like its his last lifeline. All he can see is Lalo’s body, sprawled out on the tiled floor, blood pooling around his head and forming geometrical patterns along the grouts.

What has he done.

What was he thinking. 

What is Fring going to do.

Fring’s going to kill him.

And if he won’t, the creepy twins sure as fuck will.

“You coming…?” Domingo’s voice sounds small from the door leading to the storage room. For a second, Nacho thought he heard something different in it. Something _hopeful_?

He shakes his head, and Domingo leaves. The door falls shut behind him.

Lalo’s blood looks almost black, like oil. It keeps on spreading, and as two rivulets of the dark liquid reunite around one large grey tile, Nacho’s fear starts subsiding.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. It will all go back to the way it was before. He will go back home, he will fall asleep, and when he comes back tomorrow, Lalo is going to greet him, like always, alive and well and very much not a reason for the Salamancas or Fring to come after Nacho.

But right now, Lalo’s blood reaches the tip of Nacho’s shoes, and the way Lalo’s empty eyes are staring up at the ceiling, how his face is forever frozen in an expression of honest surprise, it makes Nacho feel… good.

Really good. To be exact, nothing has felt this good in forever.

His breath doesn’t come out in huffs of panic anymore. It’s excitement.

It’s the same sudden rapture that he felt when he stood on the bridge all these months ago and thought he was tossing away all his worries together with Hector’s pills. He feels victorious. He feels vindicated. And this time, nothing can stop him. There will be no repercussions.

Nacho hurries outside, gets into his car and grips the steering wheel so tight it creaks under his fingers.

Fring, that’s who he really wants to see bleed out on the ground. But the chicken man is out of town for a couple of weeks, far out of his reach. Doesn’t matter. He knows exactly where he wants to go. He runs multiple red lights before he halts in front of a building with a bright blue roof. He doesn’t bother properly parking the car. He just kills the engine and gets out, ignoring the protests of a nurse helping an old lady with a walking aid across the pavement.

Nacho pushes open the swing doors to a sunlit room filled with sofas and tables, the eyes of two dozen retirees suddenly on him. One man doesn’t look up, one man sitting at the far end of the room.

Only when Nacho makes his way across to the man in the wheelchair and plants himself right in front of him does Hector Salamanca’s renitent gaze flicker up at him. Nacho’s hands twitch for the gun in his waistband, he wants to relive the same moment he’s just had with Lalo, just make it more personal this time. He wants to put a bullet into the head of the man who’s not just a nuisance that has come all the way from Mexico to torture him personally, but the cold blooded bastard who has come to his father’s shop, who has spat in his father’s face with his offerings of corruption, who has threatened his father’s life.

But now that Nacho is here, now he has the chance to end it, all Nacho sees is a pathetic old man who can’t even wipe his own ass anymore. This is not the Hector Salamanca who he wants to take his anger out on. It wouldn’t feel right.

What did feel right though, Nacho muses as he leaves the Casa Tranquila, was putting a bullet into Lalo Salamanca’s grinning face.

So Nacho does it again the next day. “Oh, hey!”, is all Lalo can say. It takes three shots this time, but it feels just as indescribable. Nacho remembers the first and last time he’s ever shot a person. It was to protect the Salamanca twins of all people. Nacho recalls his hands feeling shaky, he remembers sweating all over, though that could have been because he was basically in the process of dying. But also, it was final. This is not.

He comes in the next day, Lalo greets him again with the same grin and Nacho can shoot him again, without having to fear for his own life, for his father’s. Even as the shots and Domingo’s scared yelp echo off the kitchen walls again and again, Nacho watches Lalo’s body collapse on the ground, watches the sharpness in his eyes fade away, and he doesn’t have to fear anything.

After spending most of his days drowning in an existential crisis, Nacho starts going back to his old routine, even picks up workout again. Sometimes the dreams with the dark shapes moving along the horizon return, but they get less threatening with each night, and their haunting presence fades quicker with each morning. 

Nacho finds himself whistling on his way to the Michoacáno. He wonders whether he could accelerate the whole procedure, maybe catch Lalo off guard earlier, but even after driving around town for a couple of hours, he doesn’t have enough leads on where he could find Lalo before the afternoon in the shop, so that is where he keeps going, and that is where he keeps finding Lalo. After a couple of repetitions, Nacho finds that he wants to play with Lalo a little more, drag it out. Now that he’s sated his hunger, he has the time to toy with his prey a little.

The Salamancas have underestimated him for over a decade now, and there has always been a part of Nacho that wanted to rub that in.

“Oh, hey!”, Lalo yells and beams at him. “You’re here, right on time! Hold on one second,” Lalo says, but is cut short as he turns around and finds himself at the business end of Nacho’s gun. He freezes but doesn’t make any effort to raise his hands or look convincingly shocked. There’s a mild surprise though, and he does take a step back.

“You think just ‘cause you’re a Salamanca, you can waltz in here and make us all jump through hoops”, Nacho hisses and squints at Lalo over his sights. “But guess what, I know your weakness.”

Lalo tilts his head, and his hips too, as his eyes wander up Nacho’s body. There’s the hint of a smile right where his mustache disguises the corners of his mouth. “And what would that be, eh? Pretty boys with murder in their eyes?”

Nacho scoffs. “I was thinking more along the lines of a bullet to the head”, he answers, and shoots.

This night, when he lays in bed, he can’t help but coming back to that moment, to that conversation. There’s something new there, he thinks as his hand rakes over his chest and his fingertips leave light streaks that immediately turn back to his normal skin color. It’s curiosity. He wants to know how this conversation would have continued.

The next day, he finds himself in the kitchen with Lalo again, but his palms are feeling sweaty around his gun. “I know your weakness.”

“And what would that be, eh? Pretty boys with murder in their eyes?”, Lalo all but purrs.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a bullet to the head”, Nacho prompts, and waits expectantly. He watches Lalo, intrigued. His finger curls around the trigger. He can end this whenever he wants to.

Lalo inclines his head and leans back against the counter a little as he sizes Nacho up again. His gaze is so shamelessly appreciative that Nacho feels like he’s naked. “I think you can do better than that.” 

With measured steps, Lalo moves closer. Nacho only backs away far enough for Lalo not to reach the gun, but his eyes are trained on Lalo’s face, the way his shoulders move as he steps forward. He’s seen this body collapse on the floor about a dozen times now, watched it grow cold and pale before him. But now the question crosses Nacho’s mind what it would feel like warm and pulsing against his palms.

There is a sudden bright flash in the corner of his eyes, the reflection of something metallic. Lalo has already stabbed the large kitchen knife through Nacho’s hand and into the countertop next to him. Having Nacho pinned down this way, Lalo is free to wring the gun from his hand and smash the magazine into his face. Nacho stumbles, falls, but his hand, still tacked to the counter top, keeps him from reaching the floor, so he dangles down from the side of the table in an awkward angle, searing pain screaming through all of his nerves and his head spinning.

Lalo readjusts a wayward strand of hair that’s fallen into his face and chuckles. “And they told me you were smart.”

Nacho can look down the entire barrel of the gun. The shot rings in his ears, and Nacho wakes with a start.

Nacho doesn’t return to the shop. He switches off his phone, throws out Amber and Jo for the day and sits on the couch, staring at the mess they’ve left. His heartbeat just won’t calm down. It thrums in his ears, and every sudden noise from outside makes him flinch. He looks at his hand every five minutes to make sure there are no traces of a knife cutting straight through it.

There is something that annoys him even more than the physical reaction he has to dying yet again. Humiliation is biting away at his stomach. He let Lalo play him like a fiddle with that little flirting act.

Even the next day, when his palpitations are gone and he can finally touch his own gun without his fingers trembling again, it doesn’t feel the same when he walks into the shop and shoots Lalo in the face. He’s gotten it out of his system, and by now it feels just stale. When he lies awake in bed at night and waits for those dark shadows to pull him under again, he misses the thrill of surprising Lalo, doing something that the other man doesn’t have an immediate answer to.

“Oh, h-”, Lalo starts, but Nacho has already wedged one foot between Lalo’s, pushed his hips up against him, grabbed Lalo by the collar and yanked him down to kiss him.

Lalo drops the plate he was just preparing and makes a surprised noise into the kiss. He puts both hands on Nacho’s shoulders and shoves him away. “Wait, wait, my friend! Let me have a look at you first!” He does, giving Nacho an appraising glance up and down, and his grin grows wider by the second. Lalo tilts his head in a way that he’s never done so far. The creases around his mouth still mock Nacho, but it’s in a mischievous way. It probably would have made Nacho want to shoot him in the face, if he hadn't already spent the last two weeks doing exactly that. Nacho can see the other man’s teeth grazing his lower lip in approval.

“Dios mío”, he murmurs as Nacho pulls him back into a long, soft kiss.

Nacho closes his eyes. The front of Lalo’s shirt is all warm from the stove, Lalo’s mouth tastes like the spices he’s using for the tacos, and _jesus_ how long as it been since Nacho kissed, let alone fucked someone? He must have spent weeks in this hellscape, and he couldn’t even think about sex.

They break apart. 

“You wanna go grab a drink?”, Nacho asks breathlessly.

Lalo’s face lights up in a pleasantly surprised smile.


	3. Faraday Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“So what do you want, Nachito?”, Lalo asks. Both his hands are on Nacho’s sides and he kneads Nacho’s hips with his fingertips._
> 
> _“What?”, is all Nacho can muster in his impatience. When did he become “Nachito”?_
> 
> _“If you wanted to make demands, now would be the right time to do it.” Those gleaming coals are on Nacho again, and it feels like they are burning holes into his mind._

The wide-eyed look Domingo shoots him as Nacho and Lalo leave the shop is so full of utter confusion, it all at once drives home to Nacho how ridiculous the entire scene must seem to a bystander. For all Domingo knows, Nacho just waltzed into the shop, up to their new boss, who he’s never seen before, and started eating the man’s face with no regard for who’s watching.

There’s something almost entertaining about it, Nacho thinks, as he tells Domingo in a completely matter-of-fact tone to hold down the fort while he’s gone.

The sun’s been broiling the cars outside. Lalo lets out a sharp whistle at the sight of Nacho’s Javelin. His fingers trace along the curve of the red hot hood, and seemingly lost in thought he murmurs “Wouldn’t mind tinkering with this beauty a little”, but the way his gaze falls on Nacho over the hood of the car makes his intentions clear.

Originally, Nacho was planning on getting them somewhere, a bar or some other place where the music is so loud that he doesn’t have to hear Lalo talk. Turns out, the drive is already too much for him. They haven’t even left the parking lot of the Michoacáno when Lalo starts his usual introduction routine, followed by an incoherent string of future plans for the shop, for the business, and lamenting about how long it's been since he's seen his tío Hector.

They’re halfway through a business park area when Nacho decides he’s had enough. He pulls the car into the orange shadows of a dusty bystreet between two large, windowless buildings and kills the engine.

“So exactly what are we doing here”, Lalo wants to say, but Nacho interrupts him by leaning over the gear shift, grabbing him by the back of his neck and slamming their lips together so hard their teeth click. Nacho doesn’t want to let himself enjoy this, but he can feel Lalo’s mustache curl against his lips in a smile, feel the rumble of Lalo’s chuckle in his chest, and he can’t help but pull the other man closer and delve deeper into the kiss.

Lalo seizes Nacho’s face and pushes him away just far enough to breathe, and for a second Nacho thinks he’s going to tell him to get a grip, because jesus christ it’s about time somebody does. But Lalo doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Serves Nacho right for hoping for a Salamanca to reestablish common sense.

“How about we take this someplace else?”, Lalo says instead with a nod to the back of the car.

Nacho has owned the Javelin for almost a year now, and he realizes he’s never been in its backseat. The leather is almost completely untouched, and it still smells faintly of that distinct new car scent from back when the seats were reupholstered. It mingles with the smell of roasted beef, cologne and spices that Lalo gives off as they crawl in. The couch-like form of the Javelin’s backseat is practically made for lounging into it. The only logistical problem is posed by the very low roof of the car. Nacho has to duck down very low when he climbs on top of Lalo, but the spatial restriction doesn’t bother either of them. It’s warm back here, the air is stuffy, and the noises they make as Nacho grinds down against Lalo’s hips are muffled by the leather interior. It all works together to make Nacho’s head swim with how much he needs this right now.

He immediately feels Lalo harden against his crotch. At least Nacho doesn’t need to be ashamed about how much of an absolute slut he must look like right now, not with how enthusiastically Lalo kisses up his neck and groans as Nacho’s roaming hands brush his nipples through the light, grey fabric of his shirt. Nacho’s not sure whether it’s a sign that Lalo has or hasn’t already been greeted like this by a future subordinate.

“Pull down your pants”, Lalo demands, baring his teeth against Nacho’s neck in an excited grin. 

In any other situation Nacho would be embarrassed at how quick he is to comply. It is only then that he realizes the fault in his plan, and sighs. “Definitely gonna bring lube next time”, Nacho murmurs to himself as Lalo pushes down his own pants and briefs far enough to free his considerable half erect dick and let it prod against Nacho’s entrance. A pleasant shiver runs up Nacho’s spine.

“You’re sure of yourself”, Lalo says with a chuckle. “Let’s see whether there’s gonna  _ be _ a next time…!”

Nacho stares at him, and he knows he must look unbelievably weary as a bitter smile tugs on the corners of his lips. “Believe me, there will be.”

That doesn’t deter Lalo in the slightest. Quite the opposite, spurred on by Nacho’s apparent confidence, Lalo grabs his ass with one hand and pushes up against him, a groan forming deep in his throat. The other hand Lalo lifts up to his mouth to suck on his fingers, not breaking eye contact with Nacho for a single second while his tongue darts out and pushes between his middle and index finger, making them slick with saliva.

For the first time on this particular Tuesday they take a moment to really look at each other. Lalo’s eyes seem completely black now as they rake over Nacho’s body, only the light bouncing off the leather interior reflecting in them - like gleaming pieces of coal, Nacho thinks, and his throat constricts around a dry gulp.

Lalo’s hands wander down Nacho’s back to his entrance. As Nacho pushes up his ass, Lalo slips in one wet finger, then two, and Nacho doesn’t even bother with holding back his moans. He rocks against Lalo’s touch, slowly and deliberately, bracing himself with one arm over the backrest of the car seat and the other on the handle of the door behind Lalo. They stay like this for a moment, Nacho grinding back against Lalo’s touch and down against his crotch, and if the way Lalo’s gaze is glued to him is any indicator, he’s very much enjoying the show.

“Condoms?”, Lalo breathes. His dick is rock hard by now, Nacho can feel it when he pushes down against it, and it makes him bite down on his own lower lip so hard he’s tasting iron.

“Fuck me already”, Nacho hisses, rips open his shirt that’s sticking to his back with sweat and tears it off his body.

It’s almost amusing how quickly Lalo’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “¡A huevo!” He’s a bit breathless, clearly too turned on for further words, and shifts underneath Nacho in anticipation.

He halts for a second, his eyes glued to a certain point next to Nacho’s neck. It’s his shoulder. Lalo’s focus is on the scar Tyrus’ bullet has torn into Nacho. Lalo’s fingers brush over it, and when he looks back up at Nacho’s face there’s a question in his eyes. Nacho reclines as far as he can without hitting the roof of the car and lifts the hem of his undershirt to reveal the other scar. It gets the same almost reverent treatment. Then Lalo seizes his hips and Lalo breaches him.

Nacho lets out a groan from between gritted teeth. He presses his arms up against the car roof, creating counterbalance to Lalo’s thrusts, and his back is aching from the uncomfortable way he’s sitting slouched over the other man, and Lalo’s going in way too dry, but the pain mingles with the pleasure, and it grounds Nacho, makes him feel awake, and sharp, and like this is the present, and he’s right in it, and there is no better place to be than here right now.

But almost immediately, Lalo halts his thrusts, and Nacho bites back a whine of frustration. “So what do you want, Nachito?”, Lalo asks. Both his hands are on Nacho’s sides and he kneads Nacho’s hips with his fingertips.

“What?”, is all Nacho can muster in his impatience. When did he become “Nachito”?

“If you wanted to make demands, now would be the right time to do it.” Those gleaming coals are on Nacho again, and it feels like they are burning holes into his mind. 

Right. To Lalo, this would of course look like Nacho’s trying to establish a certain give and take in their future working relationship. But right now, there is nothing else that Nacho wants out of this. He just wants Lalo to keep going. He wants to stay here, in the present, with the pain and the pleasure and the distraction and why did Lalo have to stop??

But Lalo sees right through him, not unlike the way Tuco did. Time reset or no, Nacho doesn’t want Lalo to get suspicious, not now.

“I wanna make sense out of all of this”, Nacho concedes reluctantly. “But what I want right now is for you to fuck me.”

Lalo’s eyes narrow for a second, the corners of his mouth curl. “Get on your back.”

It’s an awkward maneuver, involving lots of shuffling and Nacho almost taking an elbow to the face. Nacho can’t stifle a laugh as Lalo’s foot gets stuck in his knee bend, sending them both into the cushioned seat, hopelessly entangled in each other's limbs. Finally, Nacho manages to scoot underneath Lalo, legs wrapped around the other man’s hips. Lalo casts a warm shadow down on him and a couple of his shirt buttons have come undone in their little exercise. Nacho reaches up with one hand and opens the remaining two buttons, revealing Lalo’s chest underneath, and lets his fingers travel up Lalo’s stomach, to his chest, his sternum, his collarbone, his shoulder. “Now what”, Nacho asks, trying to banish the amusement from his tone.

Lalo’s wiry frame looms over Nacho. To him the car roof is even lower than to Nacho. So Lalo leans down, his warm body pressing up against Nacho’s chest and belly and into his crotch. “Now I’m gonna give you what you want”, Lalo’s low voice murmurs right next to Nacho’s ear.

Nacho closes his eyes and sighs at the promise.

It’s been years since Nacho has had sex in the back of a car, the memory is just a distant shape of uncomfortable angles and searing back pain. It was with Domingo, back when they were both nothing but horny teenagers. In the following years, he kept asking himself why anyone would want to fuck in such a tight space with so little ventilation, squeezed together like sardines in a can.

Now he remembers that this is why. The dizzying way their warm breath seems to fill out the entire tiny space between them until there is nothing left but their sweating bodies and the noises they produce, protected from the world outside in this Faraday cage, it’s all part of it. At the same time the inconvenience, the feeling of hard edges poking into his back keeps Nacho from getting too comfortable. It keeps him alert.

Lalo gives him everything he wants, and then some, and for a moment Nacho feels like this is something that he controls, something that he brought about, and it’s good, and exciting, and when Nacho’s thighs clench around Lalo’s hips as he comes, he’s forgotten why he’s here for a blissful split second.

“A friend of Tuco’s, eh?”, Lalo says between heavy breaths and giggles like a twenty years old college student. He’s still propped up over Nacho, and Nacho is aware of what Lalo is suggesting, but he doesn’t bother with it. Instead, in a gesture that mirrors the way Lalo touched Nacho’s scars before, his fingers ghost over Lalo’s temple, his cheek, down to the spot on his chest right over his heart - All the places in which Nacho has shot different Lalos of different timelines already.

“Alright!”, Lalo says and starts peeling himself from the leather seat. “I absolutely need a shower. How about you drive me home?”

It’s not a question, and they both know.

Lalo crawls backwards out of the car, adjusts his clothes a little, though there is no way around the fact that they need a proper cleaning just as much as Lalo does. The back of his shirt is completely drenched in sweat. Lalo stretches his arms over his head and scrunches up his face like a cat. “Got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow”, he says as he gets back into the passenger’s seat. “Any plans?”

“Yeah”, Nacho answers and takes his place in the driver’s seat after pulling up his own pants.

Lalo looks at him expectantly.

Eyes fixed to the road ahead, Nacho starts the engine and releases the handbrake. “I’m gonna do the exact same thing until I get tired of it.”

From the corner of his eye, Nacho can see Lalo’s incredulous expression. Then Lalo chuckles and slaps Nacho’s knee. “This dude, man”, Nacho hears Lalo murmur under his breath as he strokes his mustache and shakes his head. Loud enough for Nacho to hear, he adds: “I’d warn you to be careful, Nachito, but something tells me you’re already a lost cause.”

Nacho drops Lalo off and drives home, his head still filled with warm, stuffy air and his limbs still feeling like they are entangled with Lalo’s.

The next time, Nacho brings a tube of lube in the glove compartment. He doesn’t bother with the condom though.

Lalo could look at him like he’s crazy, he could call him all manner of colorful insults and kick him to a pulp. Instead, Lalo is once again impressed. The manner in which he takes all the ways Nacho is completely over prepared for this situation in stride makes this so amazingly uncomplicated.  _ Lalo _ is so amazingly uncomplicated. Nacho can’t listen to a single word out of the man’s mouth, can’t look at his smug grin in the kitchen, can’t think of all the ways in which his family has worked to screw up his life. But Lalo takes all of Nacho’s avances as they come. He doesn’t miss a single beat, and it almost distracts Nacho from the fact that to Lalo, this is going to be their first time together, every time.

The dreams are still there, and does it only seem that way or do they become clearer with every night? Now and then, when Nacho dares to stare at them long enough without looking away, the shadows on the horizon form distorted images, like sleep hallucinations. There is his father, there is Fring, Mike, Domingo, the shifty lawyer, and Lalo, too, familiar at first, they shift and change. Whenever Nacho wakes up, the first thing he hears is the ticking of his watch on the nightstand.

Every day he flees to the afternoon with Lalo in the back of his car. Nothing, not even shooting Lalo in the face, has distracted Nacho from the dreams this effectively.

It’s more of a coincidence, not intentional at all, but Nacho learns Lalo’s body like a map. There’s a certain pride to it. Nacho learns how Lalo likes to be palmed through his pants, learns that he likes not breaking eye contact while getting sucked off. Nacho learns Lalo likes sitting in the driver’s seat with Nacho in his lap, revving the engine, making it vibrate through them both and and kissing Nacho until their lips are bruised.

But more importantly, it doesn’t take Nacho long to figure out exactly how to take charge of Lalo. He knows how to rake his fingers up the back of Lalo’s neck and into his thick hair, how to form a tight fist in it to make Lalo groan, knows how hard to yank Lalo’s head back by his hair to make his dick twitch. Nacho learns how to kiss Lalo, how to nibble his lower lip, how to hold him in place by the back of his neck to make Lalo turn to soft, malleable clay in his hands.

Something is strange about this. As much as it seemed almost impossible to knock Lalo off his original course in the restaurant at first, the moment Nacho kisses him, Lalo immediately turns completely unpredictable in his actions. Even with Nacho repeating the exact same behavior, Lalo will always do something unexpected, something new. Sometimes Lalo will notice his scars, sometimes he won’t. Sometimes he will laugh at Nacho’s inexplicable confidence, sometimes he doesn’t comment on it at all, sometimes he floats vague threats about it.

For Nacho, who’s spent the past weeks reliving the same events again and again, this is the most exciting thing that’s happened in a while.

Nacho feels himself growing fond of this. More and more often he catches himself lying on top of Lalo, tracing patterns like constellations between the places he’s shot him in different realities, watching the warm skin of the other man form goosebumps under his fingertips.

And what is even more strange, he catches Lalo growing softer with him as well.

One Tuesday, Nacho is kissing the inside of Lalo’s thighs, laser guided for all those weak spots that make Lalo’s knees give in, and when he looks up he finds Lalo is just staring at him. There’s no smile on his lips. His expression is dead serious, but those coal black eyes gleam in what Nacho can only describe as fascination.

“Too fast?” Nacho asks, but Lalo shakes his head.

“You got this… this energy about you, man”, Lalo says and props himself up on his elbows as Nacho crawls over him. There is this burning gaze again, and for the first time it really reminds Nacho of Tuco’s lie detector. It feels like Lalo can see right through him, as if he can see through Nacho’s eyes all the different ways in which he’s shot Lalo.

Nacho’s heart skips a painful beat, but he smothers what he thinks might be rising fear in his chest as he delves down to kiss Lalo.

Nacho drives him home, just like he always does, drops him off in front of Hector’s place like he always does, but Lalo doesn’t walk up the driveway like  _ he _ always does. He stands still, turns his head expectantly towards the parked car with Nacho inside and says: “You coming, Ignacio?”

Nacho might have given an answer or he might just have floored the gas pedal immediately, he’s not sure.

This night, Nacho lies awake on his back on top of his blankets, opening and closing his hands around them. In Lalo’s bed, there are no sharp angles to keep him alert, there is no stuffy air to make him drunk. Nacho thinks about letting his palms wander up Lalo’s arms and holding onto the other man’s shoulders. Nacho thinks about Lalo fucking him slowly and kissing him languorously surrounded by nothing but soft sheets. Nacho pounds his head back into the matress underneath him.

He hasn’t even talked to Lalo that much. He doesn’t even give a damn about Lalo.

But this is hell.

And the presence of Lalo’s warm body has become strangely comforting, the sound of his low voice next to Nacho’s ear and the feeling of Lalo’s breath on his skin have become so familiar. It’s the only release Nacho has allowed himself in forever.

Nacho knows he’s already halfway down a road he really shouldn’t take, and if he doesn’t stop now, he might not get another chance.


	4. Thanatosis

They say when an animal finds itself in danger, it will resort to one out of two options: Fight or flight.

For the past year, Nacho has had recurring dreams of driving down an endless road, the sun always in his back. He’s dreamt of stepping on his shadow, escaping the sun and its heat, the desert and its snakes slithering at his feet. 

Now Nacho drives. For hours, for days, he does nothing but drive, with the sun always in his back. He doesn’t make it anywhere, and still he keeps on going.

Even if he gets into his car first thing in the morning, drives the entire day through, ignores all speed limits and only stops to refuel, he doesn’t get to the border. His journey always gets cut short surrounded by the endless flatlands of Montana, underneath a vast, starry night sky. He’s had so much coffee his fingers are shaking - yet on the stroke of midnight, he falls asleep, right at the steering wheel, and wakes up in his bed back in Albuquerque to the ticking of his watch on the nightstand.

He gets up again, gets into the car, and drives. How many times has he thought of escaping this city and going up North. Now he’s doing it, yet he’s not getting a single foot closer to Manitoba this way. He might as well be staying completely still. Nevertheless, there’s an unbelievable quiet out here that can’t be found anywhere else.

The sky is so vast and endless and deep, Nacho fears he might fall into it at any given moment. If he thinks about it hard enough, he can almost feel how his feet disconnect from his shadow, and he sees himself fall into the slowly fading wisps of clouds the colors of a two days old bruise, indigo and mulberry purple.

After days behind the steering wheel, he dozes off every now and then. He’s already driven his car into a ditch this way, out in the middle of nowhere. So he gets out and starts walking instead. It’s the most relaxed he’s felt in a long time, even with the trickle of blood coming down his face from where his forehead connected with the car window. He wipes the blood from his eye and keeps on walking. With every step he treads on his own shadow, a stretched out smear on the asphalt against the burning orange evening sun.

Nothing but complete silence surrounds him, the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, and the soles of his own feet scraping over the ground. When the world around him gets too blurry and he has to sit down, he watches the clouds in the sky slowly spin above him, and it’s so beautiful his throat constricts around a heavy gulp. Or he might have a concussion, it's hard to tell at this point. 

If only his father was here to see this sky, Nacho thinks. He recalls the warmth of his father’s arm around him. He recalls the steadiness of his father’s shoulders, the comfort in his voice. “No te preocupes, mijo”, he would say when he ruffled Nacho's hair. “Todo va a estar bien.”

He wipes his eyes again, and the back of his hand comes away wet despite the blood having dried on his skin hours ago.

In situations of danger, animals will resort to one out of two actions: Fight or flight.

Nacho finds himself running out of options.

The dreams are getting more vibrant, and more confusing at the same time. They are still filled with the shapes of people he knows, and yet they are strangers. There’s something they’re trying to tell him, but Nacho doesn’t feel like listening to the condescending voice of Fring, and he’s even less interested in the disappointed, solemn tone of Mike. But again and again he sees Domingo, the shadow of his body drifting over the horizon, blurry at first. He’s floating in a colorful cloud, or liquid, his whole body enclosed as if inside a lava lamp.

It should be a silly image. It's a child’s dream, to be inside a lava lamp, to touch the strangely solid looking dark blobs, maybe even turn into one. But for some reason the idea makes Nacho’s bones go stiff with ice cold fear. 

When he wakes up, there’s something wet on his upper lip. He wipes it with the back of his arm. It’s blood. The ticking of the watch on the nightstand rings in his ears, the sound clear like a knife clicking against metal. The nosebleed subsides within seconds.

Nacho has started switching off his phone when he took to spending his days on the road, and he’s come to enjoy the quiet of it. He doesn’t make it far this day though. He spends almost the entire day in bed, getting stoned out of his mind with Amber and Jo. When he finally gets his ass into the car, he barely makes it out of the city.

His mouth is dry as hell and he’s getting the shakes, so he pulls over just by the edge of town to take a deep breath and wait for the jitteriness to pass. He hasn’t eaten anything all day, and he keeps forgetting how strong the stuff the girls use is.

The sun has almost vanished behind the jagged horizon, its dark pink rays cutting long shadows like chasms into the road ahead.

Absent-mindedly, Nacho reaches into his pocket and gets out his phone. Shit, he’s high enough that he's forgotten to leave the damn thing at home. Out of curiosity, he switches it back on. The display states that he missed 10 calls from Domingo.

Nacho takes a deep breath and lets out a voiceless sigh. He waits another couple minutes until he feels like he’s in command of his mental faculties enough to function, then dials Domingo’s number.

His call is picked up almost immediately.

“Nacho?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude, where the hell are you?” Ever since he’s been a kid, Domingo has always been very easy to throw off kilter, and even easier to read. His voice sounds strained, almost panicky.

“Just out of town. What’s up.”

“Christ, Nacho!” Domingo’s walking somewhere, if the sound of footsteps on the other end of the line are any indicator. “You don’t show, you don’t pick up the phone all day? I thought someone got to you or something!”

“Hmmm, yeah, no. I’m fine”, Nacho answers and wipes his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“A new guy came in today, says he’s running things from now on. Lalo Salamanca, you heard anything about him?” Domingo’s over his first shock, but his voice is still tense. Nacho recalls with sudden vividness the way he looks at him every day when Nacho enters the shop. Like a cornered animal. 

Nacho doesn’t react.

“Anyway, he’s asking about you all day. “Where’s Varga, when’s Varga coming”, and you don’t pick up, and he’s breathing down my neck…!”

So far, Nacho hasn’t really given the fact much thought that every time he doesn’t come into the shop, he effectively condemns Domingo to spend the day alone with Lalo and deal with the consequences.

He wants to swallow, but his mouth is too dry.

“He tells me to bring you to him, so I look for you. But you’re not at home, so I go to Fifth Street ‘cause that’s where you went last night. And they tell me yeah you were there, and-” The sudden scraping of shoes against concrete interrupts Domingo’s rambling.

“...and what”, Nacho asks.

Domingo doesn’t answer, though he’s clearly still on the line. Nacho can hear him breathing.

“Domingo.” 

“Uh…” The sound of Domingo’s footsteps picks up again.

“Domingo, what’s the matter.” Nacho can hear himself getting impatient.

“Nothing, I just… uhm…” Domingo hesitates. “Can’t find my car?”

Nacho draws in his lips and bites down on them before he responds. “It’s usually where you parked it.”

“No, that’s the thing, uh… I, I think they stole it.”

Nacho has to put down the phone for a second to let out a drawn out sigh. “Stay put. I’ll come and get you”, he instructs Domingo.

“No man, I can get a cab, it’s fine, I-”

“Don’t move”, Nacho cuts him off, not even trying to hide the edge in his tone anymore. “I’ll pick you up.”

When he gets to Fifth Street, it’s already dark. Domingo’s waiting by the side of the road, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket and obviously freezing. He slinks into Nacho’s car and avoids his gaze like a schoolboy who’s just brought home a bad grade.

_ Or maybe he’s avoiding your gaze like a guy you kicked to a pulp for making a mistake last year _ , a helpful voice chimes in from the back of Nacho’s head.

Nacho doesn’t even notice the seconds of silence dragging on between them until Domingo chokes down a quiet cough.

“You gonna be alright?”, Nacho asks.

“Yeah”, Domingo murmurs, still looking at his hands that he’s holding clasped together in his lap. “It’s just.”

“Just what? Get yourself a new one.”

“Sure, yeah, but.” Domingo hesitates again. His comically large brown eyes, filled with the suffering of every innocent puppy that’s ever been kicked in the entire world, meet Nacho’s for a second. “It technically wasn’t my car. It was my dad’s. You know, the Tampico van.”

It’s very easy to be exasperated with Domingo in moments like these, especially when you got a shitton of other problems on your plate. He has a talent for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and unfortunately little in terms of wit to make up for it. Nacho fears this might one day combine with Domingo’s excessive need to prove himself as one of the tough boys - and end up being the death of him.

And with a face like that, who can really fault fate for lovingly choosing Domingo Molina as its personal punching bag.

Nacho gets out of the car without a single further word and walks over to two skells sitting on the curb not too far away. He can hear Domingo scrambling out of the car to follow him.

“You seen the green van that was here a couple minutes ago?”, Nacho asks the shaggy young guys.

The two men exchange mildly bemused glances, then one of them shoots Nacho’s Javelin a pointed look. “Uh, maybe, who knows”, he says and scratches the stubble on his chin, eyes now fixed back to Nacho.

Nacho reaches into his back pocket to get out his wallet. In front of Domingo’s wide eyes, he pulls out a wad of cash and hands it to the men on the curb.

“Oh, yeah dude!”, they say, unable to believe their luck. “There was a guy, tampered with the driver’s door and all...!” The man trails off, though it’s obviously not his memory that keeps him from continuing the story. He looks up at Nacho expectantly.

After receiving another couple of bills, he seems satisfied. “Probably parked the van on his lot at the end of Renkin Road, right underneath the freeway. That’s where he brings all his cars before he resells them.”

Domingo is smart enough to keep his mouth shut until they are back in the car, even though Nacho can see the gears turning behind his forehead. Nacho feels his disbelieving eyes on him, when he nods for Domingo to get into the passenger seat.

“What are we doing?”, Domingo asks, wary.

“Getting your car back”, Nacho responds.

It’s a five minute drive to Renkin Road, and Nacho feels Domingo side-eyeing him the entire time through. Whether his expression is leery or confused is hard to tell in the dim light of the car.

They get to the parking lot at the dead end of the street. It's an elongated piece of flat land with nothing on it except for multiple cars in varying states of disrepair as well as a shed, its roof made out of rusty corrugated sheets. There’s no one around except for the cars speeding across the elevated highway. Their headlights illuminate the otherwise pitch dark property and make the parked cars cast shadows across grit covered ground. On the far end, a khaki green van catches Nacho’s eye.

“There it is”, he says and steps out of his car. Domingo follows him, hands still shoved deep inside his pockets, as Nacho steps up to the gate of the eight foot tall chain-wire fencing surrounding the place.

Nacho gives the gate a quick rattle. It’s locked.

“Oh, well, we tried”, Domingo says, and turns to leave.

Ignoring Domingo, Nacho makes it halfway up the fence with one jump. He scrambles up the rest of the chain link wire, causing the whole fence to rattle.

“Nacho, what the hell…!”, Domingo hisses, and as Nacho hops down the other side of the fence, he can see Domingo frantically looking left and right before he follows Nacho.

They hurry over to the van, accompanied by Domingo whispering “shit, shit shit!” under his breath. It’s almost like the times they snuck into the abandoned convenience store around the corner to grab some expired energy drinks when they were kids. An inkling of the familiar giddiness tickles the back of Nacho’s mind. He can almost smell the sickly sweet scent emanating from the old energy drink cans.

Domingo tries the driver’s door. “Yeah, no. Locked.”

Nacho walks around the car to inspect it. All the doors are locked tight, the windows closed. He snaps his fingers at Domingo and gestures down to his boots. “Gimme one of your shoelaces.”

While Domingo fumbles to comply, Nacho unscrews the antenna of one of the cars nearby and wedges it into the driver’s side door, careful not to damage the car paint. Domingo hands him the shoelace, and Nacho slides it in through the top corner of the door, using the antenna to guide the shoelace over the rubber molding. Once the shoelace is inside the door, Nacho makes a slipknot on one end and maneuvers it over the doorknob. It’s hard to see what he’s doing with only the light coming from the highway. He’s almost done, when Domingo suddenly violently jerks back and grabs Nacho’s arm, making him pull the shoelace off the knob.

Nacho turns around to ask what the fuck is wrong with him, but the answer is already looking him straight in the face. Two dogs are staring at them from about 70 feet away, suspicious, but unsure what to do. Domingo’s hand around Nacho’s arm turns into a vice grip. He’s been scared of dogs for as long as Nacho remembers. 

One of the dogs, the bigger one, takes a couple of steps forward and gives them some testing barks.

Of course Domingo spins around and books it, causing the dogs to give chase immediately. Nacho has no other choice than to follow Domingo, the barking dogs right at their heels.

They reach the shed, and Domingo starts a futile attempt to open it.

“What are you doing, get  _ on _ the thing!”, Nacho yells. “Boost me up!”

“Oh, yeah”, Domingo stammers and puts his hands together to help Nacho climb on the shed. Once up on the roof, Nacho grabs Domingo’s arm and pulls him up as well, not a second too late. One of the dogs makes a daring jump and locks its jaw around Domingo’s boot, the one without the shoelace.

“He’s got me, he’s got me!”, Domingo cries, desperately flailing his leg while Nacho holds onto him to keep him from slipping off the roof. The dog pulls and tears, until it manages to yank the shoe off Domingo’s foot. Nacho seizes the opportunity and hauls Domingo onto the roof.

Domingo scrambles to his feet. “Dude, my boot!”, he yells at the confused dog that still has the shoe in it’s jaws, and Nacho cracks.

He bursts into laughter, convulses with it, arms clasped around his stomach. He laughs so hard, it echoes back from the hill surrounding the lot. 

“What’s so funny about that, huh?”, Domingo shouts and gestures at the barking dogs below them. “What do we do now?”

The dogs only get more worked up from his yelling and Nacho’s laughter. They bark excitedly and run circles around the shed.

“You want my fucking boots?”, Domingo yells and unties his other shoe to throw it at the dogs. “There you fucking go!” The animals dodge the projectile effortlessly and keep on barking. 

With an exhausted sigh, Domingo slumps down onto the sheet roof and buries his face in his hands. “Fuck this day”, he groans, and Nacho calms down as well.

“You can say that again.” Nacho sits down next to Domingo and pats his back with one hand while wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes with the other.

Domingo’s still tense, but he slowly lets up. “One day I’m gonna get one of these things as well”, he says and waves a hand towards the dogs that have started to play tug-of-war with his shoe. “Then no one’s gonna dare and fuck with me ever again.”

It’s gonna need way more than a puppy for that to happen, Nacho thinks as he looks at the way Domingo’s fingers are shaking, but he doesn’t have the heart to say it. He folds his hands behind his head and lies back, and Domingo follows suit after a moment. The roof is just big enough for the two of them to lay next to each other like this, and Nacho can feel the warmth radiating off Domingo’s body. Domingo gets out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, lights one up, takes a drag and hands it to Nacho.

They look up at the light polluted night sky, at the faint stars peeking through milky gray clouds, listen to the creaking of the roof underneath them and the sound of cars passing by on the highway.

“What now?”, Domingo says again as Nacho hands him back the cigarette.

Nacho shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”

Domingo stays quiet for a moment. “That’s the first time I ever heard you say that.” There’s something guarded about his tone. He returns Nacho’s questioning glance for a second, then turns his head back to look up at the night sky again. “You’ve never been the carefree type.”

Nacho snorts and steals the cigarette from between Domingo’s loosely closed lips.

“Anyway, don’t think I’m not grateful!”, Domingo murmurs. “It’s really cool of you that you tried to get my van back and all.”

Pulling a deep drag of smoke, Nacho thinks of being squeezed together with Domingo in the back of a car, skin to sweaty skin like sardines in a can. He wonders whether Domingo has forgotten about it. “Well, I didn’t manage”, Nacho says.

“Yeah, but… still.” Domingo’s voice is very low and his eyes are locked to Nacho’s mouth closing around the cigarette butt.

He hasn’t forgotten.

Domingo clears his throat and shifts his weight on the roof a little, making it creak. “Just don’t leave me alone with the likes of that new Salamanca again, alright?”

“You’ll have to deal with guys like him on your own at some point”, Nacho says, his voice monotonous.

“...What?” Domingo’s face turns towards Nacho again, and from the corner of his eyes Nacho can see him looking mildly terrified.

“You can’t be sure I’ll be there to watch your back forever”, Nacho says, takes one last drag from the cigarette and flicks it off the roof.

“Why?”, Domingo asks, and with every passing second, he looks more confused.

“I don’t know. I could quit.”

“You’d do that?”

Nacho shrugs. “Maybe.”

For a couple of blissful minutes, the tension that had been building between them for the past couple of months was slowly melting away. Now it’s coming back, trickling in like the coming high tide, making Nacho clench his jaw shut every time he feels Domingo’s gaze on him.

Domingo must have realized the implications of Nacho confiding in him about this, ‘cause he sits up and says: “Wait, why would you tell me this?”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it”, Nacho answers. “Doesn’t matter right now.” 

They’ve known each other for long enough for Domingo to realize he won’t get anything else out of Nacho. So he sits there, furrows his brows, draws his knees a bit closer to his chest and stares down at the dogs that have settled down and are taking a nap right below them. 

“You never thought about it?”, Nacho asks. Because he must have, right? Out of all the reasons a man would want to quit the game, fear must be pretty high up on the list, and Domingo’s always been skittish. With Lalo around, things are only gonna get worse for him. And then there’s that feeling of biting cold in Nacho’s bones when he remembers the nightmarish image of Domingo inside the lava lamp.

He’s never really thought about it, but since he’s had that dream, he can’t stop asking himself: What if Domingo doesn’t make it.

An icy shiver runs down his spine.

“You mean quitting?”, Domingo asks, and he sounds almost offended.

“Yeah, man. Things go belly up in this business so damn quickly.”

“No, not really.” Domingo still doesn’t turn to face him. “I just made it in, why would I want to quit?”

“Cause it’s dangerous as hell?” Nacho says, but what he means, and what Domingo no doubt clearly hears him say is: “Because you’re a coward.”

“So what, I knew that when I got in!” Domingo gets up, making the roof underneath him creak with every movement. The dogs inquisitively lift their heads at the noise. “At least here, I’m going places!”, Domingo continues. He gestures towards the Tampico van in the far corner of the parking lot. “My normal life? I’m hanging around my dad’s stuffy warehouse all day! I’m practically buried in there, underneath rows and rows of couch cushions and mattresses!” Finally, he turns around to face Nacho again. “If I stay there, I might as well already be dead!”

It’s eerie how well Nacho knows that feeling of being buried underneath upholstery, of being barely able to breathe. He knows what it’s like to look into your future and to see nothing but suede and vinyl, his days held together by rows after rows of seams and the rattle of sewing machines.

It used to be a nightmare for him. Now the thought of going back to that place makes him feel a dull yearning.

Nacho gets up as well, the painful pull of something not unlike childhood nostalgia constricting his throat. “I think you got no clue what you’re talking about”, he says, his voice cold. “That Salamanca guy?” Nacho nods down the street they came from, as if Lalo awaits them at the end of it. “He’s nothing against what’s out there. You don’t have the slightest idea how deep this fucking pool goes, or how big the fish in it are.”

He’s gotten so close now that it would force Domingo to take a step back, if they weren’t standing on the world’s shittiest, smallest shed. But either way, Domingo doesn’t seem to be interested in backing down.

“I’m way tougher than you give me credit for, man…!”, he says and stares at Nacho from under stubbornly knitted brows.

Nacho lifts one hand as if to pinch the back of his nose. Instead, he shoves his elbow against Domingo’s chest and trips him up simultaneously. Domingo lets out a yelp as his shoeless feet almost slip off the roof, only Nacho’s grip on his collar keeping him from falling.

The dogs are immediately wide awake again, excited to see how the situation above them plays out.

Domingo is scared stiff. His hands are closed around Nacho’s arm, but he doesn’t dare to move for fear of making them both lose balance. His enormous dark eyes flicker back and forth between the dogs and Nacho. Nacho’s stomach twinges at the sight. But there is something Domingo has to learn, and if Nacho doesn’t teach him, someone else will.

“Look at you”, Nacho hisses. “Scared shitless of these dogs. How do you plan on surviving the goddamn cartel?”

Something isn’t right. Domingo doesn’t budge. Nacho gives him another light shove, and Domingo screws his eyes shut for a second. Then he looks back at Nacho again, and just… waits for whatever comes next.

Nacho would have laughed if it didn’t take his entire strength to keep Domingo from falling off the roof. Nacho thought that it’s Domingo who’s in denial. It seems the one who hasn’t been paying attention is him. Because even though Domingo is scared, even though he’s constantly in over his head, even though he is absolutely shitting his pants right now, he still bares up. He endures whatever Nacho dishes out. Even if Nacho beats him to a pulp, Domingo hasn’t quit before, and he won’t quit now.

Domingo stares at him, and sure, there’s fear in his eyes. But there’s something else there too. God fucking dammit, Nacho thinks, is it admiration?

It hits Nacho right then that he isn’t a cautionary tale to Domingo. He’s his hero. He has been ever since they were ten years old and Nacho stole weed from the highschoolers across the street, he was when he kicked the crap out of Domingo on the cold kitchen floor of the El Michoacáno, and he especially is right in this very moment.

Nacho pulls Domingo back onto the roof.

Domingo bats his hand away and sits down, still breathing heavily. He gets out his pack of cigarettes, just to notice there’s only one left. He hands it to Nacho and turns away.

Nacho smokes up the cigarette by himself while Domingo stares at the barking dogs underneath them.

They say when an animal finds itself in danger, it will resort to one out of two options: Fight or flight. Turns out Domingo choses the third option, and feigns death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hot second, but I'm back, baby! And we're finally in the process of earning that Nacho/Domingo tag~
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the new chapter. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts ♥


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